


In Session

by maggs689



Category: Men's Hockey RPF
Genre: Alcohol Abuse/Alcoholism, Falling In Love, M/M, Non-Graphic Violence, Past Relationship(s), Therapy
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2019-03-08
Updated: 2019-03-08
Packaged: 2019-11-14 02:13:45
Rating: Mature
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 1
Words: 3,229
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/18043511
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/maggs689/pseuds/maggs689
Summary: Taylor has to go to therapy to talk about what happened with Nico.Or, Taylor Hall finds love and maybe messes it up.





	In Session

“Why are you here, Taylor?”

“Because Coach made me.” Taylor stared blankly at the therapist across from him.

“I’m serious.”

Taylor sighed, and finally pulled off his sunglasses. The therapist gasped at his black eye. “There was a fight,” Taylor said quietly.

“Tell me more about that.”

Taylor shook his head, unable to start. “It was all Nico’s fault,” Taylor said.

The therapist raised her eyebrows.

“It was all my fault.”

 ***

You don’t understand. Nico showed up that year and he was everywhere. Like, playing loud music in the dressing room and begging me for rides to the mall and just never leaving my apartment. Kid’s like a fungus.

I tried to stay away from him. I knew that it was a bad idea. I remember Edmonton. I know what happens between teammates and how it destroys teams. More than anyone else, I know.

But he kept pushing and pushing. It was less a charm offensive and more a charm onslaught. I warned him over and over again that we couldn’t, and then when we did I told him the limits, and he just. He’s too open. His heart is too big. He was always going to end up hurt.

***

“Tell me about your sexuality.”

“Wow, we’re jumping right into the deep end, huh?” Taylor looked up at the ceiling and then back at the therapist. “I’m gay, okay? Always have been. I’m not out because of hockey. That’s it.”

“What do you do about relationships?”

“In Edmonton, I fucked around with teammates. That didn’t turn out too well. In New Jersey, it’s a little easier. People don’t know me as much. I can hook up with guys on Grindr and not blow my cover. I’m careful.”

“Grindr is for hookups. What about relationships?”

Taylor clenched his teeth. “I don’t do relationships.”

***

I found out about Nico and Nolan early on. Nico talked about Nolan _constantly_. I didn’t tell Nico this, but it was such a cliché. Top prospects game, the combine, draft weekend. First overall and second overall, supposed to be rivals but hooking up instead. It happens every single year. And every year the guys go to different teams, and they end up on different sides of the country. Ten years go by and you hook up a half dozen times. It’s nothing. It’s nostalgia, and nostalgia is fucking toxic.

I could tell that Nico had wanted something more from Nolan after the draft. He convinced himself that they were close enough to make it work, that the travel and the distance and the grind wouldn’t destroy them. But Nolan? Nolan was smarter. He had already moved on. He went to Philly and forgot everything.

It’s better that way. It’s better not to spend your career pining for something that you can never have and letting it kill you from the inside out.

***

“When did things start between you and Nico?”

“In November. He got snowed in at my apartment and he never left.”

“I don’t remember a snowstorm in November.”

Taylor smiled to himself. “There was like, an inch of snow. He thought he was being so clever.”

***

I was half asleep on the couch. Nico had put on a movie, something foreign and boring.

He was over at the window looking at the snow. He was so excited, like a little kid seeing his first snow. It didn’t make sense because he grew up in the Alps and saw snow all the time.

He dragged me off the couch and over to the window, and then stood there behind me, his chin hooked over my shoulder. He wrapped his arms around me and it just felt so warm. I was lonely. I didn’t realize how lonely I had been the previous year in New Jersey. Didn’t know what it was like to have someone until Nico was there all the time.  

Suddenly he turned me around and was kissing me, pulling me against him. He moved on me without hesitation, with all the confidence in the world. He was 18. I wouldn’t have been that brave at 18.

I told him that we shouldn’t and that little bastard said _I know_ and kept kissing me. He pulled me to my bedroom and it was dark and I was drunk on the feel of warm skin and his breath and everything close. I was gulping air, trying to keep above the surface but he was everywhere. I couldn’t help it. I was sinking, sinking, sinking.

Nico was a tornado. He was loud. He howled as he scratched the back of my shoulders, and I couldn’t get enough of him. The feel of him beneath me, stuck to me with sweat, his head thrown back, hands grasping at the sheets. His breath caught in his throat. The slick of his tongue.

After, we laid together and I stared at the ceiling. Nico curled up next to me and fell asleep. I watched him for hours. His face was so beautiful. How could such a force be so calm.

***

“What happened after that first time?”

“We talked in the morning. I talked. I told him that I liked hooking up with him and we could keep doing it but we should stay friends. I was probably babbling and he just said, ‘Don’t worry, I won’t fall in love with you, Taylor.’ Like that was the easiest thing in the world.”

“Was it?”

“Was what?”

“Was it easy being just friends?”

Taylor looked down at his hands. “No.”

***

Nico was amazing. He had so much energy and he wanted to know everything about me. He wanted to stay up late, hear all my stories from juniors, look at pictures of my family. He started to feel like home. I couldn’t remember what New Jersey had been like before he got there. He was all smiles in practice, but I knew that he smiled bigger for me, was happiest when we were together. To see his heart so light was amazing. He made everything better.

He was wild and bold. One day after practice in January, he thought it’d be funny to take an ice bath in the fountain in front of my apartment building. He convinced me to wade into the fountain with him. The water was only up to our knees but we were screaming in pain from the frigid water. He was laughing and wrestling with me, and he almost pulled us both over into the water. I had to drag him inside and warm him up with hot cocoa. His cheeks were pink and he was so happy, even if his teeth didn’t stop chattering for an hour.

***

“And?”

“And we were inseparable for months. I’m sure everyone knew. We were showing up to practice together every day. He had bite marks on his neck constantly and once we almost got caught making out in the gym. He was not subtle about covering it up, he was giddy.”

“Did you want people to know?”

“Maybe,” Taylor admitted.

The therapist nodded. “Maybe then it’d be real,” she said, looking down at her notepad.

***

I took Nico to the David Bowie exhibit at the Brooklyn Museum when we had a day off in March. He didn’t know a lot about American music but he was trying to get into it. They gave us Bluetooth headsets and we could hear different Bowie songs as we went around the exhibit. Nico was fascinated. He had to read every label for every item.

One of the last rooms of the exhibit was a big room with a cathedral ceiling. It was dark and there were huge screens playing live Bowie concert footage. The music was loud and it was a shock to hear the music over the sound system after hearing it on headphones during the rest of the exhibit. People were standing together and swaying to the music and little kids were dancing around. Everyone was just enjoying the moment, David Bowie bigger than life on screen.

We sat in the middle of some people sprawled out on the floor and Nico laid back against my chest. His hair was soft against my chin and I wrapped my arms around him. I could feel his heart beating against me, steady and strong. He looked up at me and smiled, the light from the screen dancing across his face. Bowie singing Five Years, about the end of the world coming for us, and I didn’t care. All I cared about was that moment, about Nico warm in my arms.

We stayed there for almost two hours. I don’t think either of us wanted to leave. Outside that room, the spell was broken. It was cold and I remembered that Bowie was still dead.

I dropped Nico off at his apartment. He wanted me to come up but I needed to be alone to think. I went home and took a long shower. I stood under the scalding water and tried not to beat myself up for missing Nico.  It was becoming obvious that I was lonely without him, that I needed him.

***

“After all that, did you tell him?”

Taylor frowned. “Tell him what?”

The therapist set down her notepad. “A person can’t spend that much time with someone and be so physically and emotionally intimate with them and not have feelings.”

Taylor shook his head. “We agreed, just friends.”

“That’s bullshit, Taylor. You know that, right?”

“Excuse me?”

The therapist leaned forward and looked him in the eye. “You fell in love with him.”

Taylor mumbled, “I didn’t want to.”

“I think you did anyway. And I think he fell in love with you. How do you think it made him feel, that you pushed him away?”

Taylor bit his lip. He wasn’t going to cry.

  
***

I took him to my favorite place in New Jersey. We drove out to the Delaware Water Gap on a day that felt like spring was right around the corner. We hiked up the ravine, flowering with hemlock, and reached the top of Mount Tammany by noon. Nico had packed sandwiches - some kind of weird bread with cheese and mustard - and a thermos of hot cocoa. We stayed up there, the wind whipping Nico’s hair across his face, until the sun was low over Pennsylvania. He held my hand as we hiked back down.

He kept holding my hand during the drive back to Hoboken and in the elevator up to my apartment. He clung tight to me in the shower while I shampooed his hair and washed the sweat from the hike off the back of his neck. He was quiet, broken open for me.

Later when we were in bed, the windows were open in the apartment. It was getting cooler and it started to storm, but we stayed wrapped up in each other. I watched him ride me, lit by the flashes of lightning, his skin strobed white gold. He was beautiful.

He held on to me, pressing his face close to mine. I told him to breathe, to breathe with me, and I tried to slow down but he was unstoppable. He fucked me harder, his breath coming faster. He said - I’ll never forget this, he said it with such awe in his voice - he said, “ _I didn’t know it would be like this_.” He threw his head back and gasped, his knees gripping my hips. I begged him to come. I was so close.

As he came down, I could see tears welling up in his eyes. I was terrified, he was so much and I didn’t know how to do this with him. Before I could think, I said something cruel. I said “ _Are you going to cry now?_ ” and I heard the mean edge in my voice. He pulled back. He wouldn’t look at me. I tried to hold him close but he rolled away. He was shivering, so I pulled a blanket around us both and he finally let me hold him until he stopped shaking and his breathing slowed. I felt like an asshole - I am an asshole - but I didn’t know how to be with him for real.

***

“How long?”

Taylor pulled the plastic chip out of his pocket. “Eighteen months.” He ran his finger over the ridges before bringing it to his lips to kiss. A blessing for strength, for more months.

“Did you do therapy in rehab?”

“The first time, it was just group and I didn’t really talk. The second time I did one-on-one therapy. It helped a little.”

“Were you drinking that night, with Nolan?”

“No!” Taylor emphatically pointed to the chip. “I was…,” he sighed. “I was stone cold sober and stupid, all on my own.”

***

It was after a game in Philadelphia. The Flyers won and they were going out to celebrate at some place downtown, quiet, away from the fans. TK invited me.

I don’t know why, but that night I felt like I might crawl out of my skin if I didn’t get away from everyone. If I didn’t get away from Nico. It’s how I used to feel when I drank, a buzzing in my head that would grow louder until I blacked out, or got into a fight or did something reckless.

I didn’t tell Nico. I heard the next day that he was really upset on the bus. He didn’t know why I wasn’t there and I wasn’t answering my phone. And then when the video came out, obviously. He was upset.

Hockey players are so worried about stalker fans and puck bunny gossip and all that shit. But we’re our own worst enemies when it comes to social media. We were coming back from the bar and fucking TK was narrating a video of the walk to the apartment for Instagram stories. And there we were in the background, me with my arm tight around Nolan’s shoulders. His head was tucked low and I guess if you were innocent, it looked like I was just whispering in his ear. But I wasn’t innocent.

He was buzzed and I was telling him how hot it was that he was already hard for me, just from my hands under the table at the bar. He was so easy, so pliant. It took nothing to get him naked on his knees, head tilted back, to fuck into his mouth until I forgot.

I was in control. I was breathing steady. I drove headlong into it. I saw it happen. I didn’t swerve to avoid it.

***

“Did you talk to Nico after?”

Taylor wiped his face with one hand, wincing when his fingers brushed over the bruise around his eye. “I had to, we work together.”

“Tell me what happened.”

Taylor shook his head. It hurt too much to remember.

***

I was in the dressing room before our next practice and Nico came charging into the room. He came right up to me. He looked like he wanted to murder me. He was shouting about Nolan, _did you fuck Nolan, I want to know what you did, did you fuck him_. I tried to back away but he had me up against the wall.

A couple of the guys pulled him off of me and I started yelling back at him, _why don’t you ask Nolan, if you care so much ask him_. It was pathetic. I was the one who had made this about Nolan. Nico didn’t even talk about him anymore. I was panicked and I felt all of my control slipping away. I shouted, _you’re a dick Nico, all you care about is Nolan._

And, like it was in slow-motion, I saw him clench his fists at his sides and pull away from the guys holding him back. He swung his right arm and punched me right in the face.

***

“Where are you going now?”

Taylor shrugged on his jacket. “I should probably talk to Nico. Do you think it’s too late to apologize?”

“Maybe, but I don’t think it’s ever too late to be honest about your feelings, Taylor.”

***

I knocked on Nico’s apartment door. He opened it with the chain still on, peering out through the crack at me skeptically. I think he forgot that I still had the key fob for the door downstairs.

I asked him if we could talk and he reluctantly let me in. When I took my sunglasses off, he winced at the sight of my black eye.

“Do you want some ice?” Nico asked. Before I could answer, he went to the freezer and pulled out an ice pack. He wrapped it in a towel and gestured for me to sit on one of the stools at the breakfast bar. He touched the ice pack to my eye and held it there. He was looking at my face, carefully keeping his expression neutral, but I could see that he was upset.

"Nico,” I took the ice pack from him and held his hand loosely in mine. “I want to apologize but I don’t know if there’s an apology big enough.”

Nico sighed and pulled his hand away. “No,” he said quietly. “You really hurt me.”

“I’m so sorry, I was an asshole.” I took a deep breath. “But I owe you more than an apology. I have to be honest with you, and I haven’t been for a really long time. Since November, I’ve been in love with you. Like, _really_ in love with you. My feelings just kept getting bigger and bigger, and I wanted to be with you for real and that scared me. I don’t know why I thought that pushing you away and fucking someone else was the answer, because it wasn’t. I just made things worse and I hurt you and...,” I trailed off and looked down at my hands. “Anyway, now you know so that’s it.”

I got up to leave. I was at the door when Nico said suddenly, “I’m not in love with Nolan, you know.”

I turned to look at him and nodded. I could tell that he was trying not to cry. “I know,” I said, stepping a little closer to him. “I made a mistake, Nico, I’m so sorry.”

He was crying now, tears coursing down his cheeks. I was unsure if he would let me near him. I wanted to hold him but I knew not to push him. But to my surprise, he held his arms out to me. I stood close to him and he laid his forehead against my chest. I ran my hands up and down his back as he sobbed, rocking him from side to side to comfort him until his breathing started to even out.

“I feel so stupid,” Nico mumbled into my chest. He sniffed loudly and looked up at me. He still looked impossibly sad, but there was a fondness in his eyes. “I’m so stupid because I still love you.”

I breathed out and felt some of the tension release from my shoulders. “What...what does this mean?” I was trying not to get my hopes up. We were so far from okay and I still didn’t know if we’d ever make it back.

“I don’t know,” Nico said, leaning his head back against my chest. “But for now I want you to stay."

**Author's Note:**

> David Bowie performing Five Years in 2011
> 
> https://youtu.be/dE2PR14tGeE


End file.
